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PARENTS across South Cheshire are being urged to ensure their children are vaccinated on time as a whooping cough outbreak continues throughout the UK.

Some 159 cases in the North West were confirmed by laboratory tests in six months up to the end of June this year.

This compares to just 44 cases in the same period of 2008, the last year in which there was also a national outbreak.

To get full immunity children should be vaccinated when they are two, three and four months old and given a pre-school booster at the age of three years and four months.

Dr Sam Ghebrehewet, Health Protection Agency North West’s regional immunisation lead, said: “Babies and infants have limited immunity to infection and whooping cough can make them very ill indeed, so it is essential that children are immunised as soon as they reach the appropriate age for the vaccine.

“All too often we’ve seen vaccinations delayed, perhaps because of holiday commitments, and babies remain vulnerable in that period.

“My message to parents is that they should make the vaccination of their children, at the right time, a priority. Whooping cough is an unpleasant illness that can last for weeks and in extreme cases it can result in death.

“The best way to avoid suffering in the child and anguish in the rest of the family is to stick rigidly to the vaccination schedules.”

Symptoms of whooping cough include prolonged coughing in older children and adults and coughing fits accompanied by the characteristic ‘whoop’ sound in young children.

In England and Wales as a whole, 675 cases were reported to the HPA in June.